Slovenian Intellectual History in the Light of Contemporary Theories of Religion: From Separation of Spirists and Culture War to Communist Revolution

Regarding the period covered by the project, the focus will be on the period from the second half of the 19th century or “Mahnič's” separation of spirits until the beginning of the communist revolution during World War II. This does not mean that we will not go beyond this timeframe, both in the direction of the preceding time and the period after that. This is not even possible. However, the main focus is on this period. The project will apply contemporary theories of religion, especially those that are useful in terms of secularization, modernization, violence, understanding of culture, culture war (Ger. Kulturkampf), and ideological conflict. It is worth mentioning, among other authors of such theories, Charles Taylor, René Girard, Jan Assmann, as well as the Russian philosophical and theological thinkers. An important segment of our research will touch the violence and culture war. The next inevitable topic is the question of truth and authority (revelation and the Church), including their phenomenological, hermeneutical, and ideological or social aspects (application of the first two to the last two). This problem is closely related to the problem of nihilism brought to the Slovene space by freethought, which penetrated into it from abroad. From the point of view of nihilism, we will shed light on the spiritual crisis of the Slovene freethought, communism, as well as the crisis of traditional Catholicism, from which the situation increasingly required new answers in line with the signs of the times. An important part of our project will be exploring the collision between freethought and the traditional (conservative) or radical Catholicism. The next line of research will be to shed light on the dynamics of building of the Slovene nation schematically captured by the “people-nationstate-nation” triad. We will highlight the tension caused by the formation of the Slovene nation on one hand and the ideology of populism (Ger. Volktümlichkeit) used by both the Catholic and Communist sides on the other. In this way, we will try to shed light on the ideological conflict introduced into Slovene space by freethought, modernization and secularization. These factors resulted in the separation of spirits (declared by the Catholic priest and leading ideologist of Slovene radical Catholicism Anton Mahnič (1850-1920)). The ideological clash culminated in the course of World War II with the communist revolution and the clash between Catholics and Communists. The project will thus have two levels, which we will try to connect as organically as possible: a more general theoretical level, and a specific Slovene "story" which research will give the project empirical content. In this way, we will achieve two things: on the one hand, the project will test with an application the general established theories of religion and culture, and on the other, we will shed light on the Slovenian intellectual history in a way that has not been systematically done so far in an interdisciplinary and harmonized research project. We will also explore the subject in a comparative way (Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Poland, Austria …). Therefore, we will attract competent researchers from these countries. The project is a novelty on the global scale, as no one has systematically done anything similar in a systematic way. The project is important from the point of view of national and European interest, since understanding of ideological conflicts in the past is also crucial for understanding such frictions and conflicts in the present, and last but not least for resolving them. The project is not only relevant to the area of theology, religion, history and cultural studies, but also to other fields of humanities and social sciences. The call emphasizes cultural heritage and European importance: the project undoubtedly has both dimensions.